Mother’s Day just passed, and I’m thinking about the mothers I met during my 35 years of work on behalf of neglected and abused children.
Patricia’s was the first case I assigned to myself after Humboldt County, California, hired me to develop its new Child Protective Services program. Her little girl was in foster care in Elk County, Kansas. Patricia was born and raised in Humboldt but moved to Kansas with Mia’s father. The relationship went badly, and Patricia took to drinking. After daddy left, she kept drinking and neglected Mia. She understood why the Kansas agency took Mia away from her. Now that Patricia was back in her home community, Elk County asked us to check on her and let them know if/when she was to resume custody.
Patricia lived near her mother. She had reputable friends, a job, a home and had quit drinking half a year before. She was active in the local Grange. She was open and cooperative with us. I wrote and said she was ready. Elk County said they wanted another three months “just to be sure she was stable.” We waited. Another court hearing came and went. They stayed unconvinced, and I started getting annoyed.
Mia had been away from her mother for 18 months. Just what would it take to prove readiness? I asked. We didn’t receive a clear answer. After several increasingly angry letters and phone calls, I asked our welfare director to intervene with Elk County’s welfare director. He did, and after being apart for over two years, Mia rejoined her mother. Happy Mother’s Day, Patricia.
Fifteen years passed. My agency changed for the worse. Instead of preserving and reuniting families, we seemed intent on separating them for as long as possible. After unsuccessfully resisting this trend for several years, I resigned and joined Niki Delson in her private practice as a family therapist.
My first referral was from a public defender representing a young mother who had voluntarily surrendered her infant son after violently shaking him. Though uninjured, Amos was now in foster care as a ward of the court. Mom realized she needed time and help to become a competent parent, and the attorney gave her a list of licensed therapists. She chose me because she recognized my name from stories her mother told her about the social worker who helped reunite them when Elk County seemed intent on keeping them apart forever.
I worked with Mia for six months. She took parenting classes. She visited Amos regularly, and they spent weekends without incident. It was time, I opined, to send Amos home, but now Humboldt had become more like Elk County. They wanted more time in foster care. They didn’t think Mia was ready, but they couldn’t say exactly what they wanted to see to know she was ready. They tried delaying the inevitable by asking for one court continuance after another. But Mia and Amos had a competent attorney and a no-nonsense judge. Based on my testimony, Amos was home three weeks after the first court review date. Happy Mother’s Day, Mia.
Roberta was houseless by choice, part of a community of creatives living an alternative lifestyle with a large “extended family” whose home was the streets and byways of Eureka. But the Welfare Department considered Roberta inherently unstable and wanted to terminate Roberta’s parental rights so Oliver could be adopted by his foster parents. The Judge appointed Niki as his independent expert to evaluate and recommend.
During their first interview, Roberta pleaded with Niki to look at and understand her worldview. She said she was part of a stable community that welfare workers refused to become familiar with or understand. Stability was possible, she asserted, without a house, though she recognized this might not be great for a small boy. She promised to keep a roof over Oliver’s head, but she wouldn’t give up her friends and her way of life because she needed a support system, and this (mostly) houseless community was it. She asked Niki to walk with her through her world before making up her mind, something the welfare workers had refused to do.
The day-long tour took them along hidden paths where they watched kayakers and cormorants. Lunch with Roberta’s “extended family” consisted of surplus food put out daily by restaurants and markets with houseless people in mind. Behind a department store, they searched a dumpster to find toys, tools, kitchenware and sealed gift boxes of food. Roberta’s tent, like most of the community, was ablaze with paintings and filled with hand-crafted items. The people they met were lucid, polite and kind. Homeless people, it seems, are not all alike. Niki saw no reason Oliver couldn’t be raised in this community so long as Roberta had safe, indoor housing. Roberta promised to keep a safe home, and the court returned Oliver to his mother.
Some 20 years later, Oliver contacted Niki on Facebook to thank her for respecting his mother and allowing him to be raised in this unusual, creative community. He had become a graphic designer and was about to have his first major showing. Happy Mother’s Day, Roberta.
And happy Mother’s Day to all those whose road through motherhood has been more difficult and misunderstood by others.
Mature Content is a monthly feature from Age-Friendly Carbondale.